Orders of the Day
	 — 
	Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill
	 — 
	As amended in the Standing Committee, further considered.

Eric Forth: Indeed, and I am eager to get on to the very important debates that are coming up. I just wanted to warm myself and the House up and get people's minds thinking along the right lines. I wanted also to see if I could persuade the Minister to clarify his position on the regional-national balance, but he does not look as if he wishes to try to do so. That matter will remain unresolved and their lordships may have to look at it again, along with other aspects of the Bill.
	I am disappointed by the Minister's response. It is not always good enough for a Minister, even one as good and decent as this one, to say, "Trust me. I have said the words so that is what will happen." I hope that he will forgive me if I would prefer to see the words on the face of the Bill. I do not seem to have persuaded him on this occasion, and therefore we can move on. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Amendments made: No. 36, in page 3, line 7, leave out third 'the' and insert 'a'.
	No. 37, in page 3, line 13, leave out 'the' and insert 'a'.
	No. 38, in page 3, line 13, at end insert
	'(in place of the target which has been revised)'.—[Malcolm Wicks.]

Eric Forth: I am glad my hon. Friend picked that point up, because I was going to mention it later on. It is significant that if we had rushed through the Bill last week, we would not have had the benefit of the Government amendment that has since been tabled. The Bill might therefore have been defective in some way. The world should be grateful for the fact that the House lingered over the Bill last week to enable the Government to come forward with their later thoughts in the form of amendment No. 80, to which I will come shortly.
	The Minister seemed to want to nod through amendments Nos. 33 and 34 as though they were of little or no consequence, but I believe that we should ask at least some questions about them. I shall read amendment No. 33 out so that we know where we are:
	"An order under this section shall not include provision made by virtue of subsection (2)(b) which would be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament if it were contained in an Act of that Parliament".
	Here we are touching, importantly and properly, on the relationship between what happens here at Westminster and the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament. I always thought that environmental matters were without boundaries. I have been told over and again by Euro enthusiasts that one of the great strengths of the European Union is that it deals with cross-boundary—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) want to intervene?

Eric Forth: I am glad the hon. Gentleman is enjoying the debate. I hope he will stay for the whole five hours.
	One of the alleged benefits of our membership of the European Union, or, indeed, of the Union itself is that it deals with cross-border environmental matters. Yet, here we are, as I read this amendment, seemingly acknowledging that the approaches taken to these important environmental matters could be different, even within this tiny country of the United Kingdom or within the British Isles, and that the Scottish Parliament might well take a different view. That surely cuts right across all the arguments that I have ever heard about how it is vital that environmental matters are dealt with at not just a national but a trans-national level.
	It would appear that we might have a problem here. If we take the amendment literally—and we can do only that because the Minister did not bother to explain it—we envisage that the Scottish Parliament could digress from this Parliament in its approach to climate change and microgeneration. That is doubly unfortunate, since I would have thought that one of the environmental benefits of having Scotland as part of the United Kingdom is that it is almost certainly much richer in the renewable resources to which we all aspire. Therefore, the idea that the Scots might head off in a different direction, courtesy of devolution and the Scottish Parliament, seems unfortunate. For that reason alone, I would have thought that it might be better not to have this amendment in order that we could maintain integrity.

Michael Weir: Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the Scottish Parliament has already taken a different view? Its environmental targets are far superior to those set in this place.

Christopher Chope: I absolutely agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, but you will have noticed that subsection (3) of Government amendment No. 52 says that maximum capacity in relation to the generation of electricity is 50kW; in other words, the equivalent of a windmill 50 times the size of the one that the Minister is going to have on his house or of 50 windmills of that size in the Minister's garden. The Minister laughs, but in doing so he is probably trying to ridicule the notion that that amount of generating power in a domestic garden could be regarded as microgeneration, and that, of course, is exactly my point.
	Why are we allowing the definition of microgeneration to include units that generate up to 50kW of electricity—more than 50 times what is needed for the Minister's house and more than 100 times, indeed 125 times, what is needed for the house of my right hon. Friend? When we start talking about microgeneration of up to 50kW, we are talking about very big developments—enormous windmills or whole series of windmills. Why should microgeneration be deemed to include electricity generation 50 times or more what an individual household needs? I cannot understand that. I support the principle of microgeneration and the idea of reducing the need for the national grid to operate and allowing more energy production to be, I think the expression is, decentralised. I cannot for the life of me see that if a household chooses to put up to 50kW of electricity-generating capacity in the garden or on the house that should be described as microgeneration.
	I am disappointed that the Minister, when he came to look at the contents of the Energy Act 2004 and redrafted its provisions in the amendments that we now see before us, stuck to the figure of 50kW. I hope that he will explain how 50kW can genuinely be called, in popular parlance, microgeneration. I hope that my Front-Bench colleagues will think about this subject because if we are to get public support for decentralised power production, surely we need to gain the confidence of the general public. If somebody living, for example, in a seafront bungalow in Bexhill in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), could put up 50 windmills in their garden on the basis that it would be microgeneration and then sell almost all that surplus electricity into the national grid, and their neighbours could do the same thing, my hon. Friend would find that Bexhill, far from being a very attractive retirement area with south-facing views over the channel, would basically become an industrial landscape.

Mark Lazarowicz: If we get on to the next group of amendments I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) will be reassured that the Bill will not allow people suddenly to put 50 windmills in their back gardens in Bexhill, and that is certainly not the intention behind it.

Christopher Chope: I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention, but I am confused. Under clause 16 the maxima for the generation of electricity applicable to community energy schemes are not 50 kW and 45 kW thermal, but 20MW and 100 MW thermal.

Philip Hollobone: My hon. Friend has stumbled across an important part of the Bill. If for simplicity we say that one house uses 1kW, amendment No. 39, in effect, provides that a group of 50 houses could be covered by a scheme; but clause 16 allows up to 20MW, or 20,000kW per scheme, which would supply 20,000 houses. Surely the point of the debate is to seek justification of the 50kW limit, when it would seem sensible to reduce the limit to 1kW or perhaps 5kW and thus seriously define the micro in microgeneration.

Christopher Chope: I certainly would not want to rehearse any arguments again, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that, having listened to our debate, the Minister will explain the difference between the provisions of what he described as technical amendments and the much higher limits in clause 16. I hope that he will engage in constructive debate on the importance of not alarming the citizens of this country with the prospect of much larger generating units being sited in back gardens or elsewhere.
	This has been a useful debate. I am glad that last week the Minister accepted that there was a defect in the Bill, which led to the introduction of Government amendment No. 80.When the Minister responds, I hope he will address my concern that the definition of greenhouse gas emissions in the context of dynamic demand technologies in clause 15, which is the subject of amendment No. 80, is consequential on Government amendment No. 50, which we debated last week. That introduced a definition of greenhouse gas in clause 23 covering any of the six gases specified in the Kyoto protocol. Surely technology that increases one greenhouse gas but reduces another is not necessarily good technology. Do we not want the impact of technology on each greenhouse gas to be measured? My fear—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—is that amendment No. 80 would allow the Government to look at the overall impact on all six gases, rather than measuring the impact on each of the greenhouse gases separately. You will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I do not propose to engage again in the debate about whether water vapour is a greenhouse gas.

Christopher Chope: I beg to move amendment No. 32, in page 6, line 15, leave out Clause 9.

Christopher Chope: I am glad the Government make provision for Ministers to attend the House on a Friday, because the Government and the House decided that we should meet on various Fridays during the year. It would be rather bizarre if—

Christopher Chope: That is a helpful point and I look forward to the hon. Gentleman's contribution, to which I shall have the opportunity to respond. I believe that the best way of tackling the problem is by leaving out clause 9.
	Clause 9 currently discriminates against installations within the curtilage of a dwelling house, but not buildings that contain one or more flats. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point. If one's neighbour lived in a flat, one would have no worries, but if one's neighbour lived in a bungalow or a detached, semi-detached or terraced house, there are potential problems. My home in London where I stay during the week is a terraced house and the impact on my quality of life if my neighbours began installing such equipment in their gardens could be significant.

Christopher Chope: I certainly agree, but I have another reservation about amendment No. 13. By specifying some factors, it could be taken that others are excluded—for example, the need to safeguard the green belt, to preserve the setting of listed buildings and to protect wildlife, the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley. By not including those provisions, it might be thought that they are excluded. Perhaps that is a slightly technical, whinging point that it ill behoves me to make, especially in respect of an amendment so ably drafted by my right hon. Friend.
	What I like about amendment No. 13 are the specific references to visual amenity, noise and health and safety. We discussed visual amenity quite a lot in this short debate, but noise is a big unknown factor. Nothing in the Bill would limit the use of equipment at night. We know how sensitive our constituents are to night-time noise. I have personal experience of that. We once had a family house quite close to a farm that operated equipment late at night to dry bulbs produced in west Cornwall for the early English spring market. The noise was highly intrusive, but the equipment could run at night under permitted development powers because its use was related to agriculture. There was nothing that a concerned neighbour could do, except to plead with the farmer's common sense and to ask him to limit the use of the machines to daytime or to put in proper noise insulating material.
	The other good thing about amendment No. 13 is the reference to health and safety. We are talking about big pieces of generating equipment, which may have quite high voltage, especially if they transfer energy to the national grid. All the electricity poles in my constituency have had little red signs put on them with a yellow marking that says, "This is dangerous", and barbed wire has been put around them to protect them against intruders. Do we expect the equipment to be put on land adjacent to the public highway? How will we ensure that children, vandals and so on do not trespass and endanger their health and safety?

Alan Whitehead: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The same applies when we consider the safety of such devices. The hon. Member for Christchurch painted a picture of almost Frankenstein proportions of large swathes of white electricity fizzing across the landscape as people put power into the national grid. The truth is that if one had a solar panel on one's roof that produced electricity when it was not being used in the house, a two-way meter could place current completely safely—without danger to small children, pets, or anyone else—into the national grid. The same would be true for other forms of microgeneration.
	I regret that several wild misapprehensions have been raised today, perhaps because of a lack of clarity or understanding about the proposals in clause 9. However, with the benefit of any reasonable consideration of how permitted development orders work, how a review might be undertaken and the extent of what is proposed, no reasonable. Member in the Chamber could oppose clause 9.

Eric Forth: In that case, we need not have the clause at all. The Minister could give us an undertaking and we could all go home quickly.
	Another of the criticisms that have been levelled at the Bill from the start is that it is in that dangerous area of gesture legislation or motherhood legislation. It is about making people feel good, especially some of the single-interest groups, which seem to influence so many Members of Parliament these days. Legislation should not be for such purposes: it should be for specific and clearly beneficial purposes. It should not be about making a gesture or making people happy, or pleasing this or that group. I am now being told that all the clause does is say to the Minister, "Do a review, old boy," but if the Minister were to say simply, "I'll do a review, don't worry," we could dispose of the matter very quickly.
	The Minister said, "Don't worry, folks, wind turbines in domestic circumstances will be for a kilowatt or two." If I thought that the Minister would table an amendment—say, when the Bill goes to the Lords, as I am sure it will—that would be enormously helpful, but at present we are stuck with only one figure to work with—the famous 50kW in amendment No. 52. Apart from what the Minister said, that is the only guidance that we have had so far.
	The Minister went on to talk about "sensible-scale microgeneration", but what is sensible is very much in the eye of the beholder. It is like our good old friend "reasonable". It sounds reassuring, but in the terms of what I believe we are discussing today—potential intrusion into people's lives, albeit for the best of motives—sensible is not good enough.
	The dilemma that we face goes to the heart of the Bill. That is why I am so grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) for setting it out, and to the hon. Member for Southampton, Test for taking the trouble and deploying his expertise to spell out how he envisages the mechanisms working. However, as my hon. Friends indicated in their interventions, we are entitled to exhibit at least some unease about the process that the Bill invites to take place.
	I hope that when we come to Third Reading, we shall have an opportunity to range much more widely over the concept of climate change, the United Kingdom's role in that, and the role of microgeneration within that, so that we can set the Bill in context. That is certainly for Third Reading, not for Report. In that part of the Bill, there is a tension or perhaps a conflict between, on the one hand, the environmentalists' desire to reap the alleged benefits of microgeneration and, on the other, constraints on planning, capacity and so on. If we do not get it right there is danger that there will be a backlash such as the one against telecommunications masts which, although in a very different way, it was thought would improve modern communications and the quality of life in general.

Eric Forth: Indeed. My hon. Friend makes an important point. Necessarily, this is all rather speculative. We have not had a chance, although we may get one on the next group of amendments or the one after that, or perhaps on Third Reading, to explore the intriguing idea of surplus energy generated for domestic requirements being sold back to the grid. If that could be made to work properly, if we could get the pricing relationships right and so on, there could be a temptation for people to put in much more capacity than they needed for their own family and domestic purposes to make some money.
	I am all in favour of making money. I am still a capitalist. I know that that is out of fashion in this modern age, but I still believe passionately in profit, capitalism and even tax cutting. I am not criticising any possibility the Bill might give to the capitalist instinct in all of us, but the worry is that that incentive might induce people to install more potentially intrusive equipment and capacity than they might otherwise do. We have not considered that aspect and none of us is certain what the effect might be. That should give us some pause for thought.
	I move on to my amendment No. 70. Here again, there is the conflict that has arisen a couple of times and always will when we are considering such Bills. The Minister tends to say, "Don't worry. Of course we'll consult all the right people. Of course we'll pay due regard to their views." To avoid all doubt and misgiving, it would be better to have in the Bill an obligation on the Secretary of State, in the context of the mechanisms in the clause and the aim of this part of the Bill, to consult any
	"body or bodies as appear to him to be representative of local authorities".
	Local authorities play a key part in the Bill since in our sitting last Friday we agreed to insert the Minister's new clause bringing them very much into play. Having brought local authorities in, it would be a good idea if they were consulted on the important provisions in clause 9. The list that I propose is not intended to be limiting or exclusive. I put into the list the bodies that I thought were relevant to the sort of considerations that I hoped would be in play in the review and the process of looking at the relationship between microgeneration and planning. Obviously, the Royal Institute of British Architects sprang to mind as a group of people to whom it would be very useful to speak, to find out how they saw the relationship between the built environment, as I think we are now supposed to call it, and all this exciting new technology.
	I think the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) was gently pulling my leg, for which I forgive him completely, when he spoke about windmills on roofs in Bromley. I can tell him that the roofs of Bromley are sturdy indeed. Whether my constituents want turbines on their roofs is a matter for them. Of course, there is also a serious point about the relationship between whatever form of microgeneration we happen to be talking about—it may be photovoltaics, solar panels, which do not have to be on roofs, as they can be mounted away from a building, wind turbines or some of the more exotic technologies—and building design and construction, on which they all have a bearing. That is why I thought it would be proper and indeed essential for architects to be brought into the matter.

Christopher Chope: We have had an excellent debate in which almost a record number of right hon. and hon. Members have taken part. I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you were not in the Chair to hear the beginning of the debate, because you may find it more difficult to follow the stage that we have reached. We have made a lot of progress since the outset. The Minister started off with the view that there was no need to worry about something that was just a lot of hot air being blown from this side of the Chamber, but he, as well as the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Members for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) and for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) have all joined in and said, in effect, that it is a genuine issue and therefore an important debate.
	An interesting backdrop to the debate is that if we had had before us the report that the Minister was going to produce before the end of this month giving his strategy for the promotion of microgeneration, we would have been able to see to what extent the difficulty of getting planning permission, or the need to get it, is a constraint upon the development of microgeneration and one that he would wish to overcome. It is disappointing that we have been unable to see that, because we do not know what the Minister's strategy is or what he has in mind.
	We do know, however, that under existing planning law the Minister could bring forward proposals to change the general development order and increase the categories of permitted development without the need for this clause. Indeed, he could have taken that course any time in the past 18 months or two years. Why has not he done so? If, as has been suggested, it is such a burning issue, why have the Government not presented proposals to change the existing general development order and what is permitted under it?
	The Minister has not allayed my concern that the clause is highly prescriptive. If he is happy to provide for consultation, he does not need the clause. When my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle is the Minister responsible—I hope that that will happen sooner rather than later—I am sure he will not be so slow in making the relevant amendments to the general development order. He will not need the Bill to do that.
	There is agreement between Front-Bench Members of all three parties that microgeneration is a good thing and that it should be facilitated. If that can be done through relaxing the provisions of the general development order and allowing permitted development, there is nothing to prevent it from happening now. Indeed, the Minister could get on with it this weekend. He could put a note in his Red Box for Monday morning—so that his private secretary would see it—saying, "Get on with this." Perhaps he would have to consult the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or even the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. However, I am sure that he could present such proposals.
	The mandatory nature of the current formulation and the way in which the clause appears to exclude proper debate and consultation worry me. I shall not repeat my detailed argument that the way in which the subsections are linked results in an unnecessarily oppressive measure.
	We have heard much about the amount of electricity generation that could be facilitated without the need for planning permission under the permitted development order. The Minister has assured us that he does not intend to go beyond what he and other contributors to the debate call "small-scale microgeneration". That is a good expression but it does not appear in the Bill. If it had been incorporated, I am sure the measure would have received less detailed scrutiny because there would not have been so much concern about its intentions. People are worried about what the Bill describes as microgeneration but is, in common parlance, large-scale microgeneration, and its being carried out without planning permission.
	I have considered whether we should accept the Minister's good intentions and not press the matter to a vote. I have also taken into account the assurances of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) that he has only television aerials and satellite dishes in mind. If that is all he has in mind, it can be done at the moment, pretty uncontroversially, through the Minister's current powers. The hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) made the point that the Minister already has the power and that the clause simply makes it use mandatory. Why do we need to make it mandatory when the Minister is such an enthusiast? What is holding him back? Surely he is being encouraged. [Interruption.] Unfortunately, I cannot respond to hand gestures. If anyone wishes to intervene, they are free to do so.
	On a serious note, if we are just talking about television aerials or satellite dishes then fine, but we need to be alert to the possibility that someone might want the equivalent of 50 satellite dishes or TV aerials because they want to have 50 1kW generators.

Eric Forth: In that case, I unreservedly apologise to the Minister. I misconstrued my hon. Friend. I unreservedly withdraw any accusation I have made about the Minister.
	We can be optimistic that the 12 months mentioned in clause 15 will be met by the Minister, or, if he has been promoted by then, his successor. There will be an appraisal of the contribution that this exciting new technology may be able to make to the whole area of microgeneration and its relationship—real or imagined—to climate change. I thought that my amendments might stiffen the measure a bit. Subsection (3) states:
	"In forming the view mentioned . . . the Secretary of State must have regard, in particular, to any matters which would prohibit or inhibit the use . . . of dynamic demand technology in any circumstance in which its use could be expected to make a contribution to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in Great Britain."
	Through amendment No. 72, I want to add
	"and to the costs of installation of the equipment required, together with the likely resultant pay-back period".
	Throughout our considerations, we have rather glossed over, first, the possible costs of installing the various technologies to which we have referred and, secondly, who would be expected to bear them.
	This may be our opportunity to clarify the assumption—at least in my mind—that it will be the user, the consumer, who will install the equipment that is referred to in the clause and throughout the Bill. If it is not to be the consumer—I think that the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) is about to help me on this question—who will bear the costs and what are the implications of that? Will the hon. Gentleman help us or will he leave me to speculate for a little while longer?

Eric Forth: Of course, but the worry is that Government amendment No. 49 seeks to leave out subsections (3) and (4), although we will not know the reasons why until the Minister gets to his feet.
	I think that what is proposed is a worrying development that exemplifies a degree of over-enthusiasm by people who are keen on the Bill. Courtesy of a Government new clause that we debated last Friday, we have already amended the Bill to bring local authorities generally into the process. Although some of us were not desperately happy with that, we envisaged that county and perhaps district councils could have a role to play; mysteriously, the Greater London assembly did not appear anywhere, and we are still wondering about that lacuna. Reaching out to parish councils as the clause seeks to do is a step too far. I am not sure what added value parish councils, excellent though they are, could bring to the complexities of the subject that we have dealt with today and last Friday.
	I want to elicit more information about how a parish council can come anywhere near to doing the sort of things that are spelled out in clause 17, which refers to the encouragement and promotion of microgeneration of items such as efficiency in fuel use and reduction in energy use, as well as
	"production in their area . . . of biomass, or . . . any fuel derived from biomass".
	I must admit that that is not quite what I thought parish councils were supposed to be all about. I would be very surprised if they were prepared to give priority to the activities set out in clause 17 over and above what we would normally expect them to do.
	Matters become even more mysterious when we look at the amendments standing in the Minister's name. I struggled to understand his desire to insert the words
	"whether offered or provided by public authorities or by any other persons".
	That is an intriguing phrase. I do not know what he envisages in referring to "any other persons", but perhaps he will tell us in due course. Furthermore, Government amendment No. 48 states:
	"Assistance provided under subsection (1) may, if the council giving the assistance think appropriate . . . be made subject to conditions, or . . . otherwise be provided on such terms as the council think appropriate."
	Again, I am not sure what is envisaged, as the amendment could mean a lot or not very much at all. I look forward to hearing the Minister explain just what his amendments would mean on the ground, day to day, to a typical parish council, with the limited resources that parish councils necessarily have.
	The most intriguing of the Minister's amendments is the one that I mentioned in reply to the intervention made by the hon. Gentleman—Government amendment No. 49, which seeks to remove the one reassurance that features in the whole clause. What are we to think of that? Subsection (3) states:
	"Nothing in this section authorises a parish council or community council to provide any financial assistance by—
	(a) making a grant or loan,
	(b) giving a guarantee or indemnity, or
	(c) investing by acquiring share or loan capital."
	Initially, I thought, "Thank goodness for all that; it seems to make sense," as did the further provision in subsection (4), but now the Minister seeks to remove all that provision. The implications are intriguing. I assume that he is now content with the thought that a parish council could set out to make grants or loans, give guarantees or indemnities or invest by acquiring share or loan capital. That moves us into really bizarre territory.

Gregory Barker: The final group contains an interesting range of amendments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) made sensible points, as usual. I share his concerns about the need for community consultation and participation in local decision making. He is right that the Secretary of State should pay due regard to those issues in drawing up his report. However, I take great comfort from and, indeed, endorse the Minister's comments and do not believe that my right hon. Friend's amendments need to be incorporated into the Bill.
	I thank the Minister for tabling Government amendments Nos. 47 to 49. As he rightly said, an issue was raised not only by me but other members of the Committee. If my right hon. Friend had read the reports of our Committee proceedings, he would have known about the extensive and useful discussion of the subject that we held Upstairs.
	Much has been said about microgeneration but the measure is about a great deal more than domestic appliances. It is about decentralisation of energy. Although it constitutes only a modest step, I hope that it is the first step in a significant direction for the country's energy policy, which will encourage much greater decentralised energy. If we are to move towards a decentralised model, that will require more community schemes. In many, although not all cases, especially in rural areas, the most effective, efficient and cost-effective way of embracing the new model will not be individual householders adopting their own kit but an efficient, small community form of domestic heat and power generation. I do not mean windmills or even solar or photovoltaic technology but gas-fired, combined heat and power or biomass fuel technology. Those work best, economically and efficiently, if they are adopted by several householders coming together on a relatively small scale. They are especially applicable to rural areas. Surely it is best for those schemes to be brought together in a democratic forum, where everyone in a village could have a voice, feel that their concerns were incorporated and the result was a genuine community plan. It is important to have a facility—it is only a facility—so that, in some circumstances, there is an opportunity to give some sort of financial encouragement when there is community consent.
	I am mindful of the time and I do not want to hold matters up. I thank the Government for their amendments and support them.

Christopher Chope: As always, my right hon. Friend makes a fair point. We do not have parish councils in the metropolitan areas, so this is very much an issue for rural communities. Sometimes parish councils get together to develop policies on a co-ordinated basis across a county—there is an effective organisation called the Dorset Association of Parish and Town Councils which might be able to produce a collective response to the demands set out in clause 17.
	I do not think that I can take the matter any further at the moment, without risking the possibility that we might not be able to complete the Report stage today. I have always made it clear to people who have discussed the issue with me that my concern is to ensure that the Bill is properly scrutinised, rather than that it should be wrecked. That is why I want to put on my record my concern that e-mails have been flying around suggesting that by speaking and participating in this debate one of my hon. Friends is guilty of something greater than denying the holocaust. One might describe that as a slight exaggeration. I am sure people will realise that there are people who could be described as eco-fascists, and we must not allow them to browbeat us into doing anything other than scrutinising this important legislation.

Eric Forth: I assure my hon. Friend that I will not be browbeaten by eco-nuts, eco-fascists or any other odd people. I am always prepared to engage in serious debate and scrutiny of Bills, be they well-intentioned or otherwise. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith on steering his Bill to this stage in its development. With a bit of luck, we might just be able to get started on Third Reading today, which would be a giant step forward and would reward the patience that the hon. Gentleman has shown, as well as his politeness and his courtesy—qualities not shown by some extraordinary, unpleasant people outside the House who, being either ill-informed or malicious, think that bombarding Members of Parliament with vaguely threatening material can somehow change the way we work. I hope this debate has demonstrated that that is not, and will not be, the case, no matter how strongly they may feel about this or that issue.
	We have had a useful debate on this group of amendments. I am not sure that we have quite got to the bottom of the meaning and importance of community energy schemes and projects, or that we are completely satisfied that there will be sufficient protection against the development of what could be substantial generating plants. We have been given reassurances, and I hope that they are carried through in whatever way may be appropriate—in guidance and so on. I hope that one of the things that has emerged strongly from this debate is that we must get the balance right between the desire for good things such as microgeneration, sustainable energy and renewables on the one hand and people's quality of life on the other. It is one thing to attempt to look decades ahead and save the planet in the next century, but it is quite another to take care of the quality of people's everyday lives today, and that should concern us as much, if not more.
	We will probably have to agree to disagree on parish councils. Few parish councils will have the resources available or will be prepared to give sufficient priority to this kind of work, over and above what they do day by day in their communities. There has obviously been some interesting to-ing and fro-ing between my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) and the Minister about how to get the pitch about parish councils right. My view, which I expressed in my amendment, is that it would probably be better to leave them out of it altogether. However, at this stage of the Bill, I will be content to let matters rest there.
	We have had helpful explanations. The Minister has been helpful throughout. He has given us his explanations in his usual courteous way, and the promoter of the Bill has been much more helpful today than he was last Friday. He has been rewarded by some good progress on the Bill. I am very grateful that he brought along his hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test, who has put us right in his knowledgeable way. I am sure that the Bill will be that much the better for it. So, for all these reasons, I am not going to press my amendment to the vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Eric Forth: I look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman seeking to contribute to the Third Reading debate and telling us a lot more about the Scottish islands—a subject that does not arise very often in the House. Perhaps he could discuss hydroelectricity and give us some inspiration about the contribution it could make to reducing emissions—
	It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
	Debate to be resumed on Friday 12 May.
	Remaining Private Members' Bills

Jeremy Corbyn: Does my hon. Friend accept that, in that regard, "peoples" includes those who are in the refugee camps in Algeria?